Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Weekend Box Office #162

Back in the day when I was a theater manager, Thanksgiving weekend was one of the all-hands-on-deck weekends of the year.

It was a pain in the ass to get people to work, but I had to, because everyone goes to the movies on Thanksgiving. Probably to escape their relatives.

I remember one year my Thanksgiving dinner was a turkey sandwich from 7-11.

This weekend is looking like it'll be busy, with holdovers New Moon, 2012, The Blind Side and Precious being joined by these newcomers:

OLD DOGS (3425 theaters). Terrible reviews, but sadly people probably won't care, because this is the kind of mindless comedy that's an easy family fallback. $49.5 million for the 5-day weekend.

NINJA ASSASSIN (2503 theaters). Something for the action fans. $32.7 million for the weekend.

THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2033 theaters, expanding from 4). It'll be interesting to see if this clicks with a wide audience, because it's a strange-looking film that doesn't slot easily into any box. Figure it'll do a little something, maybe $22.2 million for the 5 days.

THE ROAD opened in 111 theaters, but is supposed to be depressing as hell. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG opened in a few theaters to good reviews.

4 Comments:

Scott, did your time as a theater manager help you at all in what you're doing today?

Robin Williams, one of the stars of "Old Dogs" was on ABC's "The View." Dude is still VERY FUNNY. Kinda dirty humor too -- even at age 58! I don't know what it is, but for some reason that movie is resonating with me. I MIGHT actually go see it.

Going shoping on "Black Friday?" Up here in Washington they've been pimping that up like crazy. I just can't get my head arround getting up 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. JUST to be at the mall by 4 a.m. It just seems so wrong.

Hope you're planning on having something better than a 7-11 turkey sandwich this year. Thanksgiving = beers and board games at my house. Gotta have some elixer to help me deal with extended family. A good buz helps the day go by smoother...

Ninja Assassin is ajust a stupid title. It's like making an army flick and calling it Mean Soldier. Should have just called it Ninja or something. But what do I know, I'm still inspecting houses for a living.

Old Dogs just looks like punishment. Like if you killed someone or something, you have to go see Old Dogs.

(Patrick, was the "Ninja Ass" abbreviation intentional? I laughed out loud. Because that's kinda what the movie looks like ...)

Danny

P.S. In celebration of Thanksgiving, I just read Burst over on the Scriptshadow site, about the buncha-folks-trapped-in-a-blizzard and they start spontaneously combusting. Has anyone else read it? It *reads* like a racecar in the red, but OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY does that ending blow turkey giblets ...